I had an experience two years in a row running a very hilly challenging trail marathon. I focused on my best “cream of the crop” chi form I could muster out. I ran the up hills in the alternating sideways form I learned from the chi workshops. I ran in 85 plus strides per minute. My stride was midfoot landing and behind me. I rotated my hips and had a “sticky feet mantra” going on.
I had a friend who is a super marathoner, She is tall and long strided and trains more than I. She ran “bandit” just to go along. SO a tough trail marathon with an averaging finish time of 7 hours became a never ending challenge to me mentally as My buddy nearly walked the entire race as I shuffled along with my “fanny twist” rotation zillion strides per minute pace. I think I was fried in my brain to be huffing and puffing up the hills with my shortened stride as she effortlessly bounded up the hills in a long strided walk!!!
I finished in a bogus 8:40 time.
Year 2012 this June I ran the same race same course. Same Buddy running along again. Same crappy low mileage training. I took an entire hour and two minutes off my time!!!! This time I locked my hip and didn’t use any rotation. My good buddy actually did some jogging on this race too. ALSO I ran in the barest of shoes NB minumus zero’s and had NO feet soreness or joint issues.
I think that if I was filmed and took a looksy in slow motion and a chi running instructor evaluated what I call locked may still show some reaching back of my hip to follow my back leg.
Do people take the chi form too literally? Can you over due the rotation at the pivot point T-12 L1? I think maybe thinking about it as something I must do may make it more energy expenditure that what is needed?

I was reading this through and almost laughed out loud when I got to the end because the answer I was going to give was right there! Yes, the Chi Running technique can be over-thought and over-efforted, bringing too much tension. One must learn to relax the mind as well, which is a big challenge with all that going on. The trick is to choose ONE focus, which in this case might be your cadence. Instead of your feet, focus on your armswing and match the elbow tips to the metronome. Just allow the rest (pelvic rotation, etc) to happen as you go. See what happens (well, you already did! ).